


Something Approaching Abandon

by Asuka



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asuka/pseuds/Asuka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sid had never been as strong as Joe thought he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Approaching Abandon

The prison cell was so quiet.

He pulled against his chains for the thousandth time. He’d always been told that with time and effort, the strongest stone could be ground to dust. He was only grinding away at himself, but he had to do something. He could continue to struggle, or he could be alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

Hours passed. No soldiers came to torture him. Joe didn’t come to rescue him. 

A stinging pain shot through his left arm whenever he moved it. He began to get used to it, with time, until he couldn’t remember what it had felt like before it had been broken.

He hadn’t looked at the stars before they had captured him. He wanted to see them one last time. 

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Joe’s eyes, huge and wet with tears, pleading with him. “Senpai, they were going to make me kill – kill children,” he’d said, voice full of horror and betrayal. Only he could have spent a year in the army and not known what Zangyack really was.

For a moment he hated Joe, hated him for being noble, for being weak and innocent, for making him do the right thing unconsciously. He hated him for calling him senpai, and for meeting his eyes at the end of maneuvers, and for the way he sometimes left his hand on his shoulder for too long. Mostly he hated him for believing in him. In Zangyack.

It had been so easy to say that they had been lied to by Zangyack, because it was true enough. That one of them had realized the lie and then found it didn’t matter, well, he wasn’t going to have to own up to that in the end.

He tried to move his legs, to pull at the chains again, but they wouldn’t move. They buckled and he cried out as the manacles cut into his wrist. He struggled to his feet, breathing heavily.

It was a test, and he’d known Joe would fail. He didn’t even have it in him to fight back against the recruits that had bullied him all through boot camp and through his time in the second division. How could he raise a hand against innocents? It was a test designed to weed out talented idiots like Joe who had managed against all odds to hold onto some sense of morality.

But Sid had passed it, hadn’t he? Passed it time and time again. Maybe he hadn’t been a monster to start with, but he was well and truly one now. When you were no longer cutting down helpless prisoners or refugees because the empire would kill you if you didn’t, but because taking one more life just didn’t matter anymore, you weren’t human anymore. There shouldn’t have been anything left in him to be moved by one boy, who shouldn’t have been any different from any of the dozens of boys he’d killed without a second thought. But there was, and he was. Somehow.

He screamed until his voice went hoarse, and he cried until his throat filled with mucus and he threw up. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

He hated himself for thinking even for a second that it would have been all right if they’d just killed Joe then and there.

He hoped Joe was alive. He’d taken a full platoon and several more squads out before they’d taken him. They were on a small base, and there couldn’t have been that many others left to pursue him. He had a chance.

If it had been Joe the spotlight had found instead of Sid, would he have gone after him, or would he have cut his losses and run for it? He couldn’t trust himself anymore. He would have run, surely, if he could have. If. If.

If only they hadn’t boxed him in in an old practice gymnasium, he could have gotten out of it. Caught up with Joe. At least seen the stars again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked up at the night sky.

If only Joe were a stronger (weaker? He wondered.) person and had been able to follow Zangyack’s orders.

If only he hadn’t seen the tiniest glimmer of talent in the weak boy the drill sergeant had pointed out to him as a hopeless case.

If only Joe had never joined the army.

If only Sid had never joined the army.

If only.

He didn't know what had finally snapped in him that he’d gone after the guards that were beating him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it happen, nor the most vicious or cruel attack he’d witnessed, but it was the first time he’d ever stepped in. It shouldn’t have been.

He managed to call Joe’s name through the blood and the dirt and the stomach acid. The sound died as soon as it left his mouth, but it echoed in his mind like an endless peal of thunder. Had it been cloudy tonight? Would he not have been able to see the stars after all? He wondered.

He couldn’t let himself think that he had thrown himself into the spotlight’s path when he’d seen that Joe was about to be discovered. He couldn’t, because then he’d be attributing some sort of human decency to himself that he knew he no longer possessed. It was an accident, at best. Bad luck. Bad timing.

He thought about how Joe smiled. The corners of his eyes curled up and his face got fuller. He’d seen Joe really smile four times. It wasn’t nearly enough. 

It had been the smallest kindness, really, that led to all this. He’d been lying on the ground, bruised and bloody and half-unconscious, and Sid had thrown him a towel. That was all. Then the next day Joe had met his eyes. That kept happening, and the next week Sid found himself pulling Joe back to his feet afterwards, then correcting his sword stance, then teaching him new techniques, then simply being with him. Then tonight.

Could things have gone differently? At this point, it almost felt inevitable. The words Justice and Atonement floated into his mind and didn’t leave.

There had always been something about Joe that wore on him, that grated on his nerves and left him restless and unhappy with himself. He should have realized what was happening. He should have been able to step back, to pull away. But he hadn’t. The fault was all his.

It seemed that even a monster could be made human again if someone else wanted it badly enough.

He wondered if he had managed to become the senpai Joe had believed he was, in the end, if only a little. He knew he would never be the senpai he deserved.

The door to the cell finally opened. A scientist in a lab coat bearing the royal insignia entered, followed by two soldiers. He looked him over. “You will be useful to us.”

Sid closed his eyes and hoped that somewhere, Joe was looking at the stars.


End file.
